In a recent NPR interview, Jonah Lehrer spoke of the ingredients that can help foster creative moments. One of the most creative companies is 3M, maker of thousands of versatile products. Their secret? An hour a day of free time for all engineers. They use the time for projects, hobbies, reading, but the point is trust and feeling relaxed. As Lehrer put it; "they don't have to justify it to their boss — all they have to do is promise to share it with their colleagues. This sends an important message early on: we've hired you, we think you're smart, we trust you, we trust you to find solutions, you manage your time in your own way."
I've never been a good planner, but as a teacher, I feel my greatest strength lies in my creativity and ability to teach 'off the cuff', and I often deviate from the plans that I'm forced to write and turn in on a weekly basis. Don't get me wrong, planning is good, but I completely disagree with the "backwards by design" model that's pushed on many novice teachers. The standards movement and to some extent, models like backwards by design have helped force teachers into jobs where there is zero creativity. What it's doing to children is worse. Where is the trust from administrators? We teachers should be thought of as the engineers of schools (heck, the engineers of our society!) and be given free time, just like the engineers at 3M. Instead, that free time and creative license is nowhere to be found in any school I've ever worked. That hour of planning I get daily is never ever spent on something leisurely. It's grading, meetings, writing lesson plans in a pre-set form, it's clerical, and sometimes even medical (accident reports, band aids, finding ziplocks for freshly-lost teeth). Non-teachers have no idea. Teachers are the hardest working people I know and the most overworked. Our creative potential plummets each time we're asked to conform.
I would love to encounter a school where the WHOLE SCHOOL participates in a leisure hour. I would love to be able to have 15 minutes to just see what other teachers in my school are doing - to get ideas and share ideas that are awesome. Every day. Instead of (often irrelevant) faculty development or professional development, the time would be much better used to share the things we read, play with, design, or write during this hour.
I am tired of feeling the need to justify my teaching, to justify my content area. I've often heard the phrase (and I agree, with one important caveat) that teachers should be allowed to close the door and teach. Teach in our own way we must do, but opening the door is essential. Not opening the door to un-trusting administrators looking over our shoulders, but to other colleagues, their inquiry, their ideas. The accountability movement needs to re-consider to what and to whom we're being held accountable. How about a bonus for creativity and innovative schools instead of those slaves to test scores?
